Social media isn’t for content, it’s for distribution

I’m not sure how you found this post of mine, but there’s a good chance that it was from a social media channel. Social media can be a great way to share thoughts and ideas, but it’s generally a bad place to develop deep content.

A little over two years ago I told you about the concept of POSSE (“Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere”), and it’s more true today than ever. I bring this up because I continue to see more and more solid content on social media that quickly becomes vapor and is no longer available to any of us.

Mark Schaefer recently unpacked this more on a Medium post that he wrote, which included some fantastic insights. In his case, it was a response to people that are using LinkedIn as a primary content platform. LinkedIn is my favorite social media channel for now, but it absolutely should not be the main place to create your content.

His entire post is excellent, which I summarized in the title of this post. Among other things, he said:

Here’s where people get confused. LinkedIn is not a content platform. It’s a distribution system.

His final sentence of his post really tied it up nicely:

If you take one thing away from this post, I hope it is this: If you’re only posting your content on LinkedIn, you’re grotesquely sub-optimizing your personal branding and content marketing effort. LinkedIn and other social media platforms can play a crucial role in personal branding. But please post all of your content on your website first and then send it into the social media distribution system.

Social media can be fantastic for you and your business, but don’t mistake those channels for being proper content platforms. Publish somewhere that your content can last for years, and use social media to do the job of bringing people over to see it.

Check out Mark’s full post to learn more.